Chelan reviews trail project, speed limit changes

CHELAN — Washington State Department of Transportation plans to extend a multi-use trail along Highway 97A from Lakeside Park to just beyond Pat & Mike's, connecting the city's Lakeside Trail to the South Shore corridor while lowering speed limits along the route. Although the state project is moving forward, Chelan City Council members questioned whether the proposed speed limit changes could have unintended consequences for drivers entering town.

The state has asked the city to contribute $60,000 toward approximately three blocks of the project that fall within Chelan city limits, where the trail would connect to the existing Lakeside Trail near Water Street. Public Works Director Jake Youngren said the trail is a WSDOT project built primarily within state right-of-way, but because part of it lies within the city, Chelan must decide whether to participate financially.

WSDOT Region Traffic Operations Engineer Ted Snodgrass, presenting via Zoom, said the shared-use path will run from the entrance to Lakeside Park to just beyond Pat & Mike's at the Highway 971 intersection. The project would reconfigure the roadway to create a separated path for pedestrians and cyclists while maintaining two travel lanes, turn lanes, vehicle access, emergency response needs and Link Transit service.

Snodgrass said WSDOT reduced portions of the trail below its typical design width to fit within the existing highway corridor while preserving enough pavement for emergency vehicles to pass. The project has also been coordinated with Link Transit, keeping one in-lane bus stop in place while relocating another near Pat & Mike's to provide an ADA-compliant boarding area.

The roadway changes would also allow WSDOT to lower the speed limit from 50 mph to 35 mph along the highway section north of the city and extend Chelan's 25 mph zone from the entrance to Lakeside Park to the Chelan middle/high school campus.

"We can't just arbitrarily throw out a speed limit and put the sign out there," Snodgrass told the council. "You have to have a context change to do so."

He said narrowing the perceived width of the roadway and adding the separated trail would create that context while naturally encouraging motorists to slow down.

Councilmember Tim Hollingsworth requested additional renderings of the city portion of the project, saying they would help the council better understand how the redesigned corridor would look and function before making a decision on the city's participation.

Later in the meeting, Hollingsworth said he remained skeptical of the proposed speed limit changes, expressing concern that motorists traveling the final stretch into Chelan at 35 mph instead of 50 mph could become more impatient once they reached downtown traffic.

"I'm skeptical of the speed limits," Hollingsworth said. "I'm worried about the impact of people doing that last mile and a half in town at 35 miles an hour, and then hitting town and being all the more impatient. I'm sure that the DOT engineers have thought through all the consequences on that, but obviously that's out of our control."

Councilmember Terry Sanders echoed those concerns, saying he was also "a little leery of the potential speed limit change and some of the unintended consequences that might come with that."

No action was taken at the meeting. WSDOT plans to provide additional renderings before the project returns to the council for further discussion of the city's participation.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media